Sheep's Clothing
by MidnightMarauder1
Summary: 2013. The X-Men have disbanded. Ororo Munroe, in her mid-fifties is a social worker in a Bronx homeless shelter. She looks forward to once a year camping with her old female "colleagues," but this year only one colleague shows up and reminds her that they are driving past the Indian reservation of an old friend. Emotions that she thought were dormant rise to the surface.
1. Chapter 1

Sheep's Clothing

**Summary**

Welcome to the 2013.

The X-Men have disbanded.

The Mutant Civll Rights and Liberties Act passed.

All superheroes, who want to still work, fight as Avengers. All extra-ordinary humans need to register their powers under the government. And only those authorized to do so can use their powers.

Ororo Munroe, now "Karen" Munroe, in her mid-fifties is a social worker in a Bronx homeless shelter working with the youth population, something she knows one or two things about.

She looks forward to once a year camping with her old female "colleagues," but this year only one colleague shows up and reminds her that they are driving past the Indian reservation of an old friend. Emotions that she thought were dormant rise to the surface.

But that is just the beginning. She slowly realizes that she has been a wolf in sheep's clothing for way too long and emotionally and psychologically she is beginning to pay the price...

**Author's note:**

I do not own rights to the following characters.

Some liberties where taken with histories of characters for dramatic effect at the author's discretion.

All events are fictional.

"Once upon a time there was a woman who could fly."

- Ororo Munroe

**Chapter One **

**Just Another Monday **

Journal Entry

February 11, 2013

I do not belong here.

They say with their eyes, their nose, with everything but their mouths.

They say I have a funny accent.

They say I am weird.

They stand a few inches farther from me than from anyone else in the office. As if I would not notice. They are so fast to walk away from me.

Everyone is looking at their watches, looking everywhere except my eyes.

They leave and go home to their families.

They ask were mine family is. I just smile.

But, honestly, I am fine with that.

They call me Karen now. Or some of the teens call me Miss "K." I officially changed my name to Karen Munroe since accounting kept spelling my name wrong.

I use to go by another name. That was a long time ago. The front office got complaints that my name was too "Africanny," their words not mine. No one could pronounce it, it sounds too foreign, it is too complicated for the kids and the parents.

Lauren blushed and asked if there was a "Mr. K" in my life. "Not at the moment."

I am okay with that.

I work at St. Mary's Homeless Shelter in the Bronx. I am a social worker going on ten years now. I deal primarily with adolescents, sometimes children. I work through ten cases a day sometimes more around the holidays.

I see a lot of poverty in these streets and it seems to get worse every day. Funds and resources are cut and there are less and less jobs out there. I help the best way I can, but I see the same faces come around every other month or so.

There are new comments from the front desk, that I seem distant with the clients. I have a forced smile they say, a tough exterior.

It is called a professional demeanor. It is true I do not listen to their music, if you could even call it music. I have my own culture, but I do not try to sell it to my clients.

They may have the same skin color as me, but, I don't know, I do not mix in with my own. I know it sounds horrible. I do not like this American culture and I guess, despite my best efforts it shows.

I do not like their goals. The music is always talking about the money they want and do not even get me started about how they talk about women. It just feels that all anyone cares about is themselves. I see generations of children being raised by the media. Where are the fathers? Where are the families? I have the same skin as them and I do not feel welcome. No matter how hard I try, the smiles, and the services I provide for them. They always inch away.

I use to think it was because I was a mutant, but now I am beginning to suspect it is just because it is….well…me…

…I am fine with that…


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – The Funeral**

Journal Entry

February 14th 2013

Penn Station at 4am. Not fun. Not fun at all.

It is snowing - it is coming in at all directions, I can barely see in front of me.

It is windy.

But I do not feel any of it.

I pretend. I put on my acting hat to blend in, but I feel like a fraud.

I pay the Amtrak cashier $185 for a round trip to Boston.

Gate 24.

I took the last two days left of my vacation and I am going to Boston. From there I take a bus to Cambridge….to bury a friend, an old friend. He was a big shot computer-engineering professor at M.I.T. He had to have his gloves and shoes custom made, usually from London sometimes Rome.

I am looking out the train window and all I can think is "prostrate cancer." Everything he went through and in the end it was just his prostrate. Just old fashion cancer, they say it is genetic. The irony does not escape me. Died at 87. He was the last of the original bunch. For whatever that means anymore.

The reception for these kinds of affairs is become more common and there are usually two groups: the people that knew the deceased in his new life and the ones that knew him from his old one. It is laughable that one other person and myself would be considered a group. I digress.

"How did you know the deceased?" Someone in the prior group would no doubt ask.

"We were…friends."

"Friends" translates to mean the dozens of times we saved each other on G-d knows how many foreign planets and alternate futures. But if it could be condensed into one solitary word before I let this person see the tear developing in my eye, than yes – "friend" will have to do.

But they look me over, they pick up on my "subtle" accent and the gears are moving in their heads, their eyes squint. They are thinking of a delicate way to bring up my accent or to dismiss their first impressions of what most people think "friend" means when a woman uses that term towards a married man. This time their eyes meet my cold eyes, they cough, and suddenly their drinks need refreshing.

Every faculty member in the Institute must be here. I will say this the doctor was loved. It was tough not to love him. I called him "Bones." It was a Star Trek reference that we would laugh about. It was especially funny if we were off planet. Take a wild guess what he called me?

"Are you the only one who showed up O," a long thin blond male asks as he comes from behind me.

"It appears that way, besides yourself Senator." Senator Guthrie of Kentucky. I still have trouble saying it. Of all the surreal encounters in my life, the biggest ones do not involve aliens or giant robots. All I have to do is keep getting older and time does the rest.

"This is indeed a sad state of affairs."

"Indeed," I thought as I grabbed another glass of wine from the server.

I look into Sam's eyes – he was so young once. My little dream-team, what happened?

The "Avengers" is now an umbrella term for all superhero teams, they all unified, marketed, packaged, and solidified after the passing of UN charter number 38205, encompassing the rights and registration of all mutant and super-human life forms. The U.S. federal government, after much struggle mind you, passed the Mutant Civil Rights and Liberties Act (MCRLA), which is our national policy based on the UN charter. It requires each of us to register with the government.

Xavier passed away first, leukemia, and then Lensher ran the house for a few years until his liver ran out. None of us made any iron deficiency jokes, which is quiet surprising and a testament to his transformation in his later years. He added on additions to the school making it a quasi university/institute until his daughter, Wanda, popped in and made everything slick and state of the art. She was a natural leader, more so than the other two. Who would of guessed it? But when the MCRLA passed the school was shut down and the Avengers now spearheaded training for all mutants and extraordinary humans. Guess who grabbed the Head of Operations spot for the Avengers? Everyone loved what she did with mutants and she was an Avenger so Wanda was the natural choice. She whizzed through the selection committee interviews like she had done it her whole life. Live on CNN she looked like she could give Hillary a run for her money.

Only one of "us" stayed with the Avengers. Take a wild guess which one? A lot professionals diagnosed him as PTSD among other things, but that did not stop the Avengers from putting him on the plane. And despite everything else he is a thrill-addicted bi-polar soldier. He always was. Better that he is out there in the front lines than in country. Many of us soon realized a genetic mutation does not equal a great soldier so many of us were grateful to back away from the dangerous heroics. Most of us are just people. We left superheroing to the professionals.

Eyes were not looking directly at Sam and myself, but could feel them.

"Congratulations on your second term and on the MCRLA."

"We did what we could do. I had a great reelection team with me. And regarding the MCRLA, I am honestly surprised we got what we did."

States are passing their own marriage and child laws. The federal government did not want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

The MCRLA is also called the Obama-Really-Does-Care Act if you are talking to someone not too keen on it. We register all our powers and depending on our occupations we are limited to our usage of them. Let me clarify, it is not like the mutants in Genosha, it is more like a boxer, whose fists must be registered as legal weapons, equal to that of a knife or gun. The Xavier/Lensher school was just too small, there needed to be national and standardized training for every mutant. That is now a guaranteed right in this county. We now have the same freedoms and the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The cartwheels Pelosi and Reid had to jump through were just amazing. Many on the other side of the aisle did not see eye to eye, there were repeals, filibusters, they brought out the cots. Find Noam Chomsky's website and he will tell you the rest.

I was able to go to grad school and get my masters degree in social work because of it.

Sam says, "now because of that law I have to vote to keep automatic rifles legal for hunting rabbits." He gulps the last of his wine. "It comes with the territory and despite popular belief it does get easier over time."

"It's how things have always been done," is all I can muster from my shroud of sadness.

Sam smiles back with his million-dollar grin, just as his wife comes in. I can smell the humanness of her.

Three of us. Awkward. Whenever a moment like these appear I subconsciously think of Sam and I as vampires and as the human as…well…lunch. Probably just some good ol' fashion reverse prejudice that Xavier never got to.

I always forget her name, but she always wants to get the dirt on my colleagues, trying to be my friend. I honestly should not give her such a hard time, but she makes it hard to be anything else. She really does.

Her name is — come to me — come to me -"Sofie." Wow I am good.

"Sorry we seem to keep bumping into you at these things. You must come to our little shack on the Vineyard, July 4th so we can get to know each other when we are not all wearing black." See I told you she means well.

"Are you still doing that Facebook/camping thing?" she asks.

I stand up straight. Hair on the back of my neck follow.

"Yep."

"What is this Facebook/camping thing?" Sam asks.

I begin to open my mouth, but -

"Honestly Sam, if a conversation is not about you, you just tune it out. You must forgive him. Karen goes backpacking every year with the rest of her former female friends to bond and catch up. Isn't that right?" She makes sure to say the word "Karen" as smoothly as Caucasians tried to say the word "African-American" after Jesse coined the phrase.

I nod. That is the most I can hope to get out before she would cut me off again.

"Sounds like a blast." In some respects Sam has never grown up.

"It get's the job done." I demurely reply.

Sofie locks eyes with another Senator. "George now why is it that you have neglected to say 'hello' to me this entire time…"

"She's really not that bad once you get to know her."

"Does she even realize she is at a funeral?"

"This is probably none of my business O and this is probably the third drink talking, but when are you going to find someone so we can talk behind their back and all miserably hate as well?"

"He just has not fallen into my life."

"Some girls have all the luck."

It feels like anything but.

"Excuse me."

I walk, I do not know where, just away from that conversation. As I walk I realize the wine has hit me stronger than I realized. In the distance I see Andrea.

Andrea McCoy. Human.

I cannot blame mutants for mating with humans. Maybe they do it in the hopes their children will be "normal." Andrea is the queen of these, a pillar in all of our lives. She helped Moira out. If Moira was our Eleanor Roosevelt, Andrea was our Jane Addams.

As she comes into focus, slowly everything moves in slow motion, and the weight of the moment hits me. I am about to pay my respects for her loss…for her dead husband. I kneel at her hand, and I feel I am walking through a Raphael painting, all the courier and dignitaries in attendance hold their Renaissance pose as "Karen" offers her respects to a fallen hero, a great man who rose beyond mediocrity to achieve a higher level of mortal kindness. They should be erecting monuments in the National Mall.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHATPER 3 – John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me**

Journal entry

Thursday – 7:30pm

April 26, 2013

I leave tomorrow morning bright and early, 4am; we hit the road to start our hiking trip to Cowan Gap State Park not too far outside Harrisburg. It is not Yellowstone, but it holds a special place in my heart, the girls (more like women, but I call them "girls") and I have been doing this for eight years straight. I made sure and had Gladace approve this vacation in November. I did not want to have any problems with work when planning for this trip. I had to do some reshuffling with my personal days and I had to use a few sick days. I know it's not exactly kosher, but she knew, and it was approved. I have been packing a week ahead of time, and I was going to use this evening just to wrap up packing toiletries and whatnot.

Five days with just nature, the sky and these crazy women. When I started it in 2005, Elizabeth came in from London (thank the gods she reverted back to her old English self), Ann Marie came from Atlanta if we could ever pull her away long enough from what's-his-name, and even Narya came from Vancouver. Customs gave her such a hard time. Those were the days. We had to drive in two Winnebagos. We told everyone to meet us at Bryant Park. Callisto drove one and I drove the other. She got lost, though she blamed it on everything and the moon. We had to wait it took forever for her to get to the campsite.

Now, it is a different story, it is sad to say, but only one other person said, "yes" on Facebook, Lorna. But I knew as soon as she said "yes" she could not do it. She has like five children with that Summer's boy (yes I still call him "boy") in Phoenix. No way is she getting away from that house. He would collapse without her. I think he is in real estate, but do not quote me on that. And I bet my Presidential Medal of Freedom that he's cheating on her. You can just smell it on him.

So here I am writing in my journal, which I have not touched since February, I am finishing some frozen soy something that is suppose to resemble ice cream. I am this close to going outside and getting the real stuff. I am too lazy to unpack. I am watching "Breaking Bad" using my suitcase as a footrest. Five days home…alone.

I discover some Beatles documentary on Netflix at 1:18am .

John is talking about the break up of his little band. He said something I had never heard before; he said he felt that the band was over when Brian Epstein died. That was in 1967, right after Sgt. Pepper. The band chugged along for three more years. Three years of feeling disconnected…of feeling lost without a leader to guide them.

"I know just how you feel John."

My phone:

1 missed call.

"John what did you make me do?"

Voicemail:

I do not recognize the number.

"Hey Oh o-o I do not know if it is too late, but I would super-love to still go with you on the hiking thing. I just wrapped a music video in SOHO and did not know I would be off until now. Cannot wait. I will meet you at your place at 6am tomorrow, I want to sleep in."

Only certain people can call me O, and you (whoever you are) are not one of them. No one calls me, whatever it is you just spit incoherently into your receiver.

- exhale -

She did not leave a name. The voice seems vaguely familiar, but I cannot place it.

It is either stay at home and continue this horrible posture for five days or see the sky and smell the trees.

I guess I will find out tomorrow whom I am traveling with.

Game on.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – Confronted By a Wolf**

6am.

It comes and it goes.

I finished my Americano Trenta on the front steps of my brownstone on Commonwealth Ave. I got addicted to Starbucks like the rest of this country, now I should probably find a twelve-step group to deal with it. But the advertising, all that festive marketing calls out to me. It is like they looked inside my brain and they were able to figure out what I wanted to buy.

I am re-reading the New York Times.

Rereading David Brooks's editorial on the war on poverty. Why do I do this to myself?

I finished the crossword puzzle by 7:30am.

19 Across: Losing one's bearings.

Six letter word.

Starts with "A."

Answer: Astray.

Anne Marie is raising four kids; the two oldest are showing signs of mutation. She's in denial. Alison has no kids, but she is still in the same ridiculous nauseating love with the same guy. They look like that obnoxious L.A. blonde couple you see strolling down Rodeo at 2p.m. on a Thursday. She did not want kids, she was afraid of what that would do to her body, but do not tell her I told you that. Kit…Katherine's father-in-law is having chemo right now. This is his second battle with it.

And despite popular belief I am not living in the past - thank you very much.

I will tell you this much. I sometimes feel like a child. Everyone has these families and these responsibilities, these – adult problems – that I do not seem to have? Am I lucky or is something wrong with me? I am beginning to suspect the later. But what?

But honestly a lot of the "girls" left after Bush was elected for a second term and have not returned since. Many went to Canada, a few to England, Pete's sister is a model hopscotching all over the world. A lot of them are models. We do not age like "normies" and our metabolism is through the roof.

I look at myself in the mirror and I still have it. I do not look a day outside of

thirty - five years old.

But even after Bush left, they Skyped me and said the country was changing. That they did not recognize the U.S. anymore. Like my closest friend Callisto, she wanted to move somewhere where things made sense. I told her to call me when she found such a place. Funny the way I remember her and the rest of them, they were never so fast to retreat. Even with Brood eggs gestating inside of them - they each fought with energy of a thousand suns.

9:15am

I hear a car screech…it sounds like it hit something, but I cannot tell for sure. Rental car.

A woman in her late thirties comes up to me. I do not know how she got out of her car so fast. Red head.

Rahne.

I cannot believe it.

I stare her down, but she does not care.

Her eyes dart back and forth and she seems to be bursting with energy.

As if it cannot be contained. If I was a little sharper I would of guessed cocaine.

I would not have been far off.

"Come on in the water's fine," referring to her beat up rental car.

The loud noise coming out of her car stereo is damping anything else.

"You are over three hours late."

"It is great to see you too."

"You are late Rahne."

"You look great. You are going to have to tell me all of your secrets and not some b#%#% ones about eating right and exercising. I want to hear about all your "special friends" that give you the edge.

I pause. This is a dangerous situation. A cocktail of disaster if there ever was one. About a half a dozen alarm bells are going off in my head.

I could just head back inside. I should just head back inside. Every fiber in my body is telling me to head back inside. Why don't I, why do I find myself throwing my bag into this dangerous vehicle and getting into the seat despite every neuron in my body telling me otherwise? What is wrong with me?

**Updated Journal – April 29****th****, 2013**

Looking back at this moment, maybe I looked up at my apartment and I could not bare the isolation just one more second, the normal-ness of it all was slowly killing me. The walls. The silence. It had nothing to do with Rahne's salesmanship. I let her seduce me; deep down in places I do not want to admit I have. I wanted this crazy person to take me away from this safe life I had worked so carefully to create.

What is wrong with me? Why am I willing to risk so much on something so trivial.

I do not feel in control of myself and it scares me. Is the boredom really so bad? It is safe and healthy.

But at that moment, I was not feeling that. I was just feeling numb as I threw my stuff in her trunk and got into her front seat. I am pretty sure I was not feeling anything at all, but a big F-you to those half a dozen alarm bells.

"Where is everyone else? Is that it? Just you?"

She does not wait for a response. She just peels out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 – Sheep's Clothing**

**- Recollections of a day in December 1989 -**

**- Flashback December 1989 -**

You know that feeling of the holidays?

Your body just knows, deep in its bones that Christmas is coming?

You can feel it in the air it is intoxicating, and you wonder why can't it feel this way all the time?

Golden time. You thinking those days are never going to end.

We traveled up and down the island. Manhattan.

All three teams. Making it a fieldtrip of sorts. Everyone came except Jean who was still recovering from the Pryor stuff, both physically and mentally.

We just finished our little episode with Pryor and Sinister.

We decide to celebrate a little. A lot of New York is returning to normal. It is amazing how strong this city is.

In the morning we went to Rockefeller Center. We saw the tree and took some photos. Amara saw Phil Hartman and Nora Dunn. Warren, in disguise naturally, ran up to them and got her their autograph. She could not stop talking about it for weeks after.

We found ourselves in the Lower East Side at the Thin Cat, a dive pool hall on Christopher Street that Bobby loved. It was a whole-in-the-wall, but it had a lot of character. We left Sam and the rest of the kids in Times Square to see "Back to the Future 2." Summers gave them a few bucks for tickets, popcorn, and subway money. He wanted receipts and Sam is good about that sort of thing. Rahne was so cute. I was really fond of her.

After the movie, they are coming back down for pizza, a little Arturo's for dinner. We will meet them there at 7pm.

This may be embarrassing to admit; I do not remember what Summers looks like anymore. Isn't that horrible. I can't remember his face. It has been so long. I just remember his presence, his warmth. There was always a sense of comfort and security with him. As a leader I know I am a lot colder and removed, I have always admired his natural abilities. We played at one table, just him and I.

Anne Marie and Betsy were playing ping-pong the winner plays Alison. I miss Kitty. I miss Kurt and Rachel too, but not as much as Kitty. When I think of Rachel I think of Summers for some reason. I look at Pete and McCoy playing air hockey and I feel lucky to see them so happy, it has been so long. Pete is such a boy in so many ways - he misses his sister. We all do.

We all had a few pitchers of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Everyone else paired up evenly on the remaining pool tables.

Despite our recent setbacks it was a great day. It was one of those days where you remember every detail. I remember being by the table closest to the door so whenever someone would come in or go, Summers would feel it and give me a look. I could smell the street. Being the leaders, like we were, sometimes it was fine to isolate and be by ourselves and let everyone else mingle.

Off on the other side of the hall was "him" (I am not going to say his name – I will just call him SOB) with two young ladies that looked like they just got out of CBGB's. I call them Pierced Eyebrow and Pierced Nose, for a lack of a better term. They looked like trouble, which was just perfect for him.

Let me be clear, crystal clear about this:

He is not Hugh Jackman.

I am trying to remain as level headed about my description of him as I can be, but I want to be clear, I want the world to know what he is really like. Hugh Jackman is a Disneyfied version of him if there ever was one. Whenever Hugh looks dashingly out in the distance, vacantly into space, the real one is not so vacant. He has the stare an abusive husband gives his wife right before ten police cars come to visit his home. He has that look every minute of his waking life.

He is short, just about five feet. Usually has B.O. of at least three weeks.

And every syllable that comes out of his mouth is used to twist the logic out of any common thought you had. To the uninitiated you think that your head went through a washing machine when you have a conversation with him, he could sell ice to Eskimos. Deadly intelligent, but he plays himself off and the village idiot. He is a suicidal bomber that cannot die, daring you to try. And if that was not enough deCosta just worships the ground he walks on.

Summers wins the first game of pool, and it was his turn to break, I took a sip of his Pabst's by mistake. He is talking about - take a guess? It is always business with him. No sports, no hobbies. He's always focused. Always "on" about the job. Caretaker. Guilt - burden. Talking about repairs to his B.O.O. (Base of Operations) updates, upgrades, repair problems, outsourcing, security issues, and using companies Dr. Richards referred to him.

"Don't take this personally Summers, but you need a few hobbies."

"Yeah, I'll start taking up bass fishing when you do O." 

"I have a hobby, wiping this pool table clean."

"No offense, but you are doing a horrible job of that."

SOB is pretending not to hear us as he downs his seventh beer, but I know he has not missed a word.

My ping-pong girls are now doing shots. "One, two, three!" They giggle when they see some cute N.Y.U. boys enter the place. Film school. They are cute in that bookish, intense way.

The door opens and closes, Summers is cold. He beats me again. I do not want to lose the next game and I get serious. I roll up my shirtsleeves.

"Tell me something Summers, if life did not deal you this hand, what would you want to be when you grow up?"

He smiles.

"I would love to have been a teacher. Math. Elementary school," he says.

"I can see that," I reply.

"Thank you and how about yourself O?"

"I would've liked to have be a social worker. And you never know, maybe one day."

Summer's takes a break to the rest room.

"Sheep's f*&%$ clothing," SOB says to no one in particular. - BAM - "nine ball corner pocket." – BAM -

Now the SOB has my attention. My undivided attention.

"What's that?" Pierced Eyebrow asks him.

Dripping with sarcasm: "Sheep's clothing, it the name of a new punk group. You like the name?"

"F—yeah. What's their music like?"

"What's their music like? Well – let's see, it starts off full of sentimentality and cheesy romance ballads about saving the world…"

"Ugh - vomit - bored already."

"Me and you both."

"Like Snow White singing to the animals," Pierced Nose replies.

The SOB spits out his beer from laughing: "Like Snow f$#%$# White singing to the f#$# animals. I love it."

I keep him in my crosshairs, but he does not acknowledge me. I am not even in the room. He's taunting me and now he has a cheerleading section.

"Snow White is this bad as b #$, but she thinks she is a soft gentle creature, someone nurturing and kind to animals. She fails to realize what she is and she is forced to live her entire life in complete darkness. She is a wolf in sheep's clothing. But that's not the punch line; the punch line is she legitimately believes that she is a sheep. It does not even phase her take the wool off. She will go to her grave thinking she is something she…is….not." 

The air is so thick it could be cut with a hatchet. In my mind there is no one in the room except him and I. He sets himself down to take the shot. He never looks at the ball.

"Eight ball side pocket." 

He looks right at me. Hits the ball without ever looking at it.

–- BBBBBBAAAAAAAMMMM -


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six – "Take Me Home, Country Road"**

**- Back to the Present -**

- BAAAAAMMMMM -

My eyes.

Irises contract.

I jerk up, hit my head on some seat.

My heart is pounding.

I do not know where I am.

I still see his eyes. The SOB.

I am in some car. I look in the rear-view and I see my reflection, but it is not me. It is a me with a bald head and white war paint – like a skull.

I am really scared.

I try to focus, I must still be in some kind of a dream. I look again - and - I look like me. - exhale - I am me again.

I look to the driver.

And it's Rahne. She looks sober and is driving straight as an arrow.

I remember now. We are driving to the campsite near Harrisburg.

Exhale. Nothing to worry about.

I study Rahne and I wonder why I was so scared of her.

After all I am Storm, Wind-Rider, and former leader of a great team. There was nothing to fear from this child-like woman.

What did I get so nervous about? I decided to join her because this is "my" vacation and it will be fun. That is why, I wanted fun and I trust her. Deep down she is still the same Rahne I know and love.

I stretch, Rahne takes notice, and smiles at me as I get comfortable. She pushes a sandwich towards me and to my surprise I am famished.

I take in surroundings. Try to see where we are.

We are…it is night….and we are driving.

Harrisburg should only have taken us a few hours, in all my years of driving to the campsite we never had to drive at night.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"Girl, you have been passed out for hours."

That does not really answer my question.

My heart is racing again. Something is not right.

I see a highway sign in the darkness as it comes to light:

US – 212

212? That's weird I never heard of that one -

"Montana," a big green highway sign fills my view.

- Mon (what the) - MONTANA -

"Rahne?"

"Yeah…"

"Why are we…um…why are we in Montana?"

"Oh, I stopped by that place you called a campsite and that was simply not going to cut it."

"Huh?" – Keep your cool Munroe. My left eye is twitching uncontrollably.

"Yeah, so I thought…we have those funky genetics right? There is only one place for people like us…Yellowstone. Am I right or am I right?"

"-ah?"

"You must have been tired doing that same campsite for so many years, I thought it would be a fun change of pace. I even bought you a one-way ticket home so you do not have to worry about driving back. I will just drive back to L.A. when we are done. What do you think?"

"I." I do not know what to think.

I find my lips moving on their own, "thank…you..."

This could be…fun.

Inextricably my heart starts slowing down.

- exhale -

I am exhausted after that. My nerves are shot. But I feel invigorated. This is going to be an adventure.

Wait a minute.

Yellowstone is in Wyoming. And we are - I am almost too afraid to ask.

"Hey Rahne."

"Yeah partner."

"Ha, uh, if we are going to Yellowstone, why are we in the wrong state?"

There is a silence.

Suddenly the highway disappears and we are driving on a dirt road.

She is making a series of turns in complete darkness.

And like a bad gangster movie she says, "you got me."

The suspension in this car is getting a workout.

"I wanted to surprise you. You see we are making a tincy-tiny detour."

I can barely make out her words from the sound of the gravel below us.

"To see an old friend."

See a sign. Part of a sign. The only part I need to see:

"Cheyenne Reservation."

I scream. At least I think I do. I cannot really tell at this point.

Lightning appears out of nowhere- (That's probably my doing. My bad.)

- hits the nearest tree to us. It collapses. Rahne maneuvers the best she can, but we flip over -

—and over—and over.

- a couple times for good measure -


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven – ****Amateur Hour**

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

The car is still moving at a pretty good clip down the road.

Upside down mind you, but sliding - somehow down the road.

"Recalculating…recalculating… recalculating…," her GPS, the calmest one in the car, points out. Thank you Mr. Garmin.

We are moving towards something, an animal of some sort, it's black – with a white stripe….oh no….

The car is slowing down. Its tail is raised.

The car miraculously stops, on a dime, right in front of it. Right in front of me.

We do not breath a word.

I am eyeball to eyeball with it.

Rahne murmurs, "do not make any sudden moves O-o-o."

I have to sneeze – I can't stop it. It is traveling up my nose, into all my nose hairs.

AAAAA-At the same moment – I hear an aerosol-can-like-sound and then…then the…odor.

We both squint immediately. That's what burning sensations do. My eyes start tearing up.

"Oh that's just…pungent," Rahne says.

Glass everywhere, in our hair….our faces. Cuts all over. But alive.

As the skunk moseys away. Well my eyes are still burning, but I hear its feet and its tail sloshing along.

I also hear things under the hood of the car pop and sputter out of place.

"I do not think you are getting your deposit back," I say, referring to the car.

I do not think it can get any worse.

We hear the sound of an approaching vehicle.

The vehicle approaches us from behind, slows down, and then zooms off.

My heart is pounding. That is all I need. Him. Him to be seeing me like this after close to three decades of -

"-i-was-going—to-say-."

It suddenly seems like yesterday.

Rahne sniffs at the air as the vehicle drives off. "That is a good thing that they left."

I do not really want to ask, but she leaves me no choice. "And why is that Rahne?" Translation: Was it him?

"Do not worry it was not him." She quickly replies.

I fall into a sigh of relief.

"I smell him-"

My stomach tightens.

"- but other scents as well. It most likely is his wife. What are the chances?"

My stomach tightens some more. His wife? Of all the gin joints…

I hear a vehicle turn around in the distance. My eyes are still tearing. This cannot be happening.

I open my eyes. I see Rahne undressing.

"What do you think you are doing?"

She stares at me, well squint-staring. The best she can.

"You were about to transform weren't you? I cannot believe you. You were going to leave me here while you…"

"Can you go back to closing your eyes?"

The vehicle sound gets louder. I eyeball her something fierce.

"It is like going to the restroom, I cannot do it if you are looking right at me."

"Oh for goodness sakes Rahne!"

The vehicle is coming into view. There is no time.

"Oh G-d I feel so violated," she says.

"You are breaking so many mutant laws right now."

"Oh, but you weren't? Where did that lightning come from?"

She closes her eyes and her clothes shrink around her. She slides out. And dashes away right in front of the approaching vehicle, right as it stops and shifts into park.

She looks back at me, still squinting her eyes. I am mouthing words at her I prefer not to repeat.

Rahne looks up, as she sees a woman get out of her car.

She talks in her native language to some children in the car. I hear her dialing her phone. I do not know whom she is calling; I pray it is 911 and not the man of the house.

Rahne hangs around, still squinting, watching from a safe distance, and almost bumping into things. Amateur hour.

Any second now I am going to be eyeball to eyeball with -her-

I did not know he was married.

"Make a left at the next intersection. Make a left at the next intersection." Thank you again Mr. Garmin.

She leans down. I instinctively smile. Forced smile.

In the background Rahne is tripping over her paws, walks smack into the car's tire, and collapses.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 – After So Many Years**

I cannot believe I am in the same state as him, in the same zip code. This is insane. I was fine a few time zones away, but now I am restless and irritable.

I was fine for years and decades. What is wrong with me?

But I do not care my heart is racing faster.

His wife is kind enough to stand by my side in the hospital. The ambulance drove me there; they even took my pet wolf to the local vet.

But I do not care my heart is racing faster.

They remove glass from my face and they sow me back up.

But I do not care my heart is still racing faster.

They run me through a CT scan to see if there are any fractures to my spinal column.

But I honestly do not care –

I am not present when the doctor talks to me and tells me about medication and about precautions for the next couple days. Sure I nod my head and say I completely understand, but I am not there in the room with him.

No, not really not even on the same planet.

My heart is racing, my blood is pumping, and that is the only thing my eardrums pick up.

Everything seems so vivid yet so distant. Everything, the traffic lights, the clocks, people, nurses, they are all just distractions. Nothing is real, they are just distractions from this itch inside my head. This itch is telling me that I am in the wrong place that I am not where I need to be. I need to be close to him. Find him. And only then will the itch go away.

I am out of sorts. I feel disheveled and perpetually lost.

His wife says I can stay with her, she does not have a clue who or what I am. She is clueless, with six kids, cannot speak English, but she can understand it. Everything she says is translated through the emergency room nurse.

The rental car company is blaming me. Saying I stole the car and that I drove it without the permission of the renter. I just take the information and move on.

We go to the pharmacy to fill the doctor's prescription. I pick up my wolf from the vet.

She drives us to her home. She is plump, homely, calm, a wife, a mother; she does not seem to exist on the same dimension as me. We barely see each other.

I am in the land where my blood and heart are swallowing my organs and she is the land of the here and now, of her children's cries and demands, which she silently fulfills with a smile.

I look at the house, a relic of some Cheyenne past. I examine each photo and every memento in the house. I help her prepare dinner. I clean and wash vegetables as her older children play with my pet wolf. I thank her profusely for her hospitality. She smiles as if what she did today was the most natural thing to do. To help a complete stranger, to take them in, feed them, and give them shelter. She is the embodiment of everything I wish I was in my profession. Seeing the ease of her giving shines a light on my willfulness. I see the heart of a social worker. And if I was paying attention I would have seen the message the g-ds where trying to give me. But alas I was not hearing them. For a fraction of a second I forget my blood pumping and my heart racing, but it returns like a typhoon and grabs me up even stronger into its arms.

I see Rahne play and I wonder: is she a human that can become a wolf or is she a wolf that can become a human.

Every car that passes in the street I think is him. And then I hear a motor ascend the driveway. My heart stops, for a second I actually think I am going to pass out. My head goes light headed, I actually forget my name, then I remember it's Karen, no wait is it?

I just hear footsteps, "They did not have the Suave conditioner you wanted so I got Pantene instead. They would not take your coupon on soup, it was expired, they said everyone has an iPhone and it just does the scanning that way. I say you are nuts. I am not buying an iPhone just for coupons. Oh, and they had two boxes left of the Playtex so I bought both of them."

- His face is covered by the grocery bags. -

- He puts them down. -

Mustache. That's the first thing I register.

Then his smell hits me. He still smells the same.

Like a man. Like an ox.

I am going to pass out. I hold onto the counter.

He absentmindedly just begins unpacking groceries and putting stuff away allowing me to be a voyeur and observe.

Then almost like magic my image of him from the past morphs, in a fraction of a second, with this man in front of me. Balding, lines, wrinkles, out of shape, a pot belly, liver spots, too much sun, but….but his eyes, his warmth, his heart comes through every pore of his body. I cannot explain the feelings that wash over me in this moment has. He finds his wife and hugs her and they are the perfect half of each other's whole.

They hug and their warmth and intimacy travels and mixes with the smell of family, of children, of toys everywhere of life being lived. It is almost like I am not here.

"How rude of me…you must be the woman my wife has been-it's funny I smell."

"I smell something, jasmine….I have not smelled that since….."

He looks up. Finally makes eye contact. And I see his eyes doing the calculations, trying to discern is he really seeing what he thinks he is seeing, like being a witness to Loch Ness or Big Foot, is this real…

"….hi…."

That's all he can manage, but his eyes say something else, they seem to say – wow, is this real. Is this really happening? How? What? Why? Where? All at once. Begging the question, but not really caring, he is cherishing a moment.

We communicate joy through our eyes in a way words could never communicate.

He knows me, knows a part of my soul and with that look he unlocks it as simple as turning a key. A dormant part of my soul, a part that holds joy and love that was dead for decades is opened within a fraction of a second. My heart aches with a newfound freedom.

His wife continues working outside and getting more groceries from the car.

I smile demurely.

His oldest son, "dinner will be ready soon."

He raps with his son and I go back to being the voyeur. His oldest son is a teenager, like a young robust version of him. Almost 19. Strangely he looks more physically like the man I remember, but the older man has a rich warm soul, which radiates from him that no younger soul could carry yet.

I feel like I have been given a new heart. I can breath. I can extend my neck. I can see colors I could not see before.


	9. Chapter 9

Warning: Mature Subject Matter.

Authors Suggestion: I might occasionally suggest songs that would fit as a soundtrack to the book. For this Chapter I recommend Smashing Pumpkins "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning."

**Chapter 9 – Fever Pitch**

Journal Entry

April 30th, 2013

1:03am

Dinner was nothing short of magnificent.

I learned the names of all their kids, their grades, what they enjoy to do.

He explained to his wife who I am.

She smiled politely, but I do not think she really gets it.

She thinks I am some supervisor at some tech agency he was contracted with, one of the dozens computer companies he was affiliated with another lifetime ago. I cannot keep them straight so it does not surprise me that she cannot.

I tell him what I have been doing. And he loves it. I explain the story of how I got here and he just laughs, tears rolling down his cheeks, and it is contagious.

Rahne, I suspect, is staying in her wolf form due to the stitches and treatment. She needs to heal.

And incase I have not been completely forthright here is what is going on in the outside world. I have 28 messages in my phone and 77 texts I have not acknowledged.

I have a feeling the homeless shelter is trying to pin some disaster on me. There are four of five people over there who are looking for any excuse to let me go.

The local police are working with the rental car company. And they are in the process of getting a warrant for my arrest for stealing Rahne's car and they probably want to question me for the disappearance of the renter.

Someone has realized that Rahne has gone missing. I would not be surprised if they knock down the door any minute now.

Currently, I am on his couch right now in his living room, using it as my bed. Staring up at the paint chipped ceiling, replaying the last few hours over and over and over in my head. I demand, I command my body to fall to sleep, but all it does is replay the evening over. As if that memory, in detail, takes up more space in my brain than the memories of the last couple decades. Those years seem to crumble and fall away like dust in my head. A trifle.

What is wrong with me? I have never felt this impulsive, this emotional?

This is not like me. Not like me at all.

This reckless. All by getting into Rahne's car.

The last time he saw me it was raining. Raining hard.

It was in the mansion.

It was in the library – it feels like yesterday. All I wanted to do was to have him hold me and to listen to me, but he did all the talking.

I still smell the faint scent of mildew, the smell of old books, of the smell of a room stuck in the 50's, of Xavier's aftershave, of tradition and prestige, of Endust, and metal polish. It was the room with the Thomas Doughty original.

He accused me of a lot of thing. A lot of things that were true about me.

No one…had...gotten…so close…to me.

He withdrew an offer….an offer I was prepare to -

What is wrong with me? I am never this nostalgic.

I hear the floor creak. Right now, in the present. Someone is descending the stairs.

That sound is like a galloon of cold water on me.

I cannot move.

I cannot breath.

I am suffocating,

I am getting physically ill.

The room is moving one-way and my head another.

I feel like one of those stupid characters in one of those grocery store romance novels. Where things are heaving and bellowing and it's just so ridiculous…but it is all happening for real, every chapter, line, and verse.

I know he is out there, I can feel it. I know it is…..him.

He is by the refrigerator getting a glass of water.

I feel something. Deep in my bones a yearning.

There is a real sane part of me telling me to stay under the covers and do not breath and whatever you do, do not get up.

But -

But then there is this other voice, not saying anything at all only:

"You know what you have to do. You have to do it."

And I find myself, quite surprisingly, putting my feet down onto the cold-carpeted floor. I feel the worn out carpeting between my toes.

The stained carpet with the spilled drink patches.

I take one step at a time, my hair is bellowing around me.

My great lioness mane. Pride. Care.

He turns around and is startled to see me.

It's not too late, I can just turn around and go back to sleep and not say anything. Do not say a word.

The scary thing is I know I am not possessed. I know there is no super-villain behind this behavior. They do not exist anymore. I know this, but I do not care, because my heart is racing.

I wait for him to catch his breath. Then I open my mouth, but he beats me too it.

"O, it is really good to see you."

"Likewise." That single words is throbbing with innuendo.

I never use innuendo. I always just mean what I say. I feel I am someone else, looking through the eyes of someone else, another "me" and it is so freeing.

"But there is something I have to say, if I may."

I shrug my shoulders. It feels like a benign prologue to something. And that something is so unimaginable that I dare myself not to go there.

Words do not seem to matter much to me so I let him speak.

"This is not easy for me O, but I am going to cut to the chase. I…I have a great well of sadness in my soul for you my friend."

This is not what I was planning on hearing.

"You, my friend have not allowed another man into your heart and this saddens me. You have stayed perpetually, how do you say, a child of sorts."

My eyes glaze over; I do not really understand him. It feels like he is speaking another language. I was anticipating him saying something….else.. something a little less…insulting...

"That is what I prayed to the gods for you tonight. I wish for you a man, I really do. Do you believe me? I am glad the gods brought you here so I could see you and carry their message. Let this baggage of the past go and fly like the Wind Rider I know you to be."

Despite my best efforts, a tear begins forming in my left eye.

"Let go of the ghosts of the past. They still haunt you I can see them dancing in your eyes."

Funny.

I asked the gods for answers as to why I have been feeling so constrained, out of sorts, and impulsive lately. The gods have a horrible sense of humor for answering my questions now.

So this is the gods answer: that I have become that old guy in the dance club wearing the disco jump suit and no one has told him he is in the wrong decade.

"Let it go and maybe a man can come in and melt that heart O."

But I did not hear that. In my mind I heard him say:

Let go and so I can come in and melt your heart O.

I am on thin ice. Though I do not know it. I could just bow away. Say "thank you for the advice," make my exit, and go to bed.

I should…I should do just that…

It would be the right thing to do…

Him explaining this to me is like a group of friends holding an intervention for a drug addicted friend right while he is going into cardiac arrest or a suicide jumper who already jumped.

…It is too late for me, my friend…

"…..you…..." I breath.

"What?"

Oh no O - do not say it - do not repeat it.

-I cannot help myself-

"I cannot think of anyone better," I whisper.

"Anyone better to what?"

I turn my lips towards his ear, "to melt my heart."

He steps away. He seems lost and confused. Like I just cursed him and his whole house. I see sadness in his eyes.

"You did it before and you are doing it again."

In his eyes, he thinks I am mad. I am not mad. I am not crazy.

I know the more I talk the more he will think that, but my lips say the opposite the more I talk the more he will fall into my arms, which is his home, and he belongs there forever.

Now - I sense something behind his eyes, something I never saw before when looking at me - fear and - p-i-t-y-.

Pity?

Me!?

His wife is the pitiful one not me.

I am the one doing yoga poses five days a week, doing the stretches at three in the morning, and midnight runs to keep this figure.

I am not a mess. I worked hard to keep myself -

I look at my reflection in the window; I see the scars, the bruises, and the stitches. I am confronted with reality.

Why did I get into that car with Rahne?

He is looking at me the way I looked at Rahne and I bet my eyes are darting left and right too.

What is it that they say about friends? They say we pick people in our lives that reflex our own disease back to us. We hang out with alcoholics if we ourselves are alcoholics; we hang out with impulsive people if we ourselves are -

"Why did you go to McCoy's funeral?" he asks.

"Because he was a friend."

"Is that it? Guthrie did it because he had to, business, had to make an appearance. You went because you are still on the battlefield, you have not moved on. McCoy would have wanted you to move on. He would have preferred you roaming the East African Mountains then in the cold city of Cambridge with a bunch of MIT professors. You are so far from home-"

"-stop-"

How dear he bring up McCoy and defame his name. He did not know him a tenth of a percent as well as I.

So let me get this straight.

Let me take the score of this game.

So I am rejected by:

My African American community – Yep.

My job - Yep

My Mutant Community – Yep.

My X-Men – Yep.

My X-men lady friends – Yep.

And my last lover, the last man who I have kissed, in over two decades is telling me, in the sweetest voice imaginable, that I – I — need to get on a boat and head back to Africa.

Africa has been a part of my heart, of my soul, and of my spiritual beliefs. But it is not my land. They are not my people. I do not know the language, the culture. I cannot tell them about Rockefeller Center and talk about to them about John, Paul, George and Ringo.

There is no home for me except in his arms. And if he rejects me, right here and right now, then I have nothing.

- enough -

Enough talking, talk, talk, talk, - blah-blah-blah-blah. These words he chatters. They hurt my head. My arms. My arms will convince him, my body will reignite his dormant memories.

A therapist might say I am sexualizing my feelings. I do not want to deal with reality so why not sexualize things. The therapist would comely tell me that I do not really want the sex, just to escape what I am feeling now. You know what I say to that?

#$%$#%#^%$^%^%$^%^&^&^&&^%## $%$#% #$# $$!

Hell if I don't want it. I want it. And I mean:

I WANT IT.

(Just in case there was any confusion).

More than anything. I do. Like a child in a toy store who cannot sleep the whole week prior. I want that toy and that. And I will not be whole, I will not be complete without those toys.

That's what I need. Now. Now! NOW!

There is a crack of thunder outside, off into the distance. Clouds are forming.

My head freezes from the overload. The tingling is overwhelming. I cannot move.

I do not have any say in the matter. Like Pavlov's dog, I have been trained to salivate at the dinner bell. Whether I want to or not.

And dinner is calling.

A burst of animal adrenaline rushes through my arteries.

Oh-my - G-d. I am so confused right now. I am so hot right now. I cannot think right now.

My limbs are tingling. I am light headed. I practically hit the floor as my legs give way. I cannot see. My eyes are going blind. What is happening to me?

I cannot think straight. My head is spotty. I see white patches everywhere. I hear the roll of thunder in the distance. I need someone in my arms. I need some body. I need him.

Either he needs to touch me right now or my body is going on automatic pilot without him. The train is leaving the station. I cannot hold on anymore.

The weight of my chest is unbearable. My chest is crying for some kind of friction, some kind of weight – some kind of heat.

…..Pleassssee. Prettty please. I want to be a good girl. I want to be a good girl….

Things are so sensitive, my hands. I dear not touch myself. I might lose control completely. My hands dig into the carpeting. I am wet all over – sticky, hot, and smelly all over, so fast. I do not mean wet. I am meaning w-ww-wee—eett-tt.

I try to scream his name but nothing comes out. Then slowly I find my voice, I find I am moaning like there is no one else in the house, in the neighborhood. I hear thunder.

I try to raise my head, but gravity slams me down again, it is like I am glued to the ground. My body, my body is in command of itself, it is not taking orders from me anymore.

Oh no…

Something's happening.

My muscles, down there, are contracting, they are – oh my G-d, they are contracting faster, until some deep down - something -

Rising - fast rising to the surface, something is about to come to the surface - inside of me. Inside of me. Inside of mmmmmm-eeeeeeeee-e-e-e-e-e-eeeeeeeee-

I am a bad person...oh my….. a very bad perso…

What is wrong with ...me…


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 9 ½ - Interlude**

I dreamt that I was the superhero Storm, you know the one from the comic books.

You know complete with the horse steroids, liposuction, breast implants, and the zillions of facelifts that these artists give us. It is quite comical, sometimes offensive, but then I had a realization.

It is all a metaphor for sex. Comic books. These teenagers reading this stuff, most of them pubescent boys, are so filled with testosterone and hormones that it is some kind of release for them.

And all the plots are so sexual, everything is blowing up and exploding, and the weapons are so phallic, everything seems so hypersexual it is almost laughable, but the readers take it so seriously.

Do not get me wrong; I am grateful that they are reading this stuff instead of getting into trouble on the streets. And channeling their hormones to some kind of art form, well, I guess it is the way it has always been done.

And people might say it is innocuous. But what happens when little Johnny wants a real girlfriend? Or a girl in the class starts acting friendly towards him? He looks at her and because she does not have the same impossible proportions as his ideal women have, he passes her by. Then another one and another one, and years go by never satisfied, because his brain imprinted early on what a beautiful woman is, and maybe there was no one in the home to tell him different.

So Johnny is hooked to the internet, the only place he can find these proportions, and a generation of women are looking around wondering where are all the men.

Maybe I am exaggerating, but I do not think I am that far off the mark.

But then young girls look to me as a role model or they despise me because of the sexualized culture of the comics, of what these artists do to me. So I am not talking on Oprah, Dr. Phil, or speaking on feminist lecture circuit. My identity has been hijacked and branded which I am too old to really raise a fuss over now.

I just wish I could be there for my gender and just not go the way of a Barbie doll.

I feel I am letting my sisters down, my larger community on a cultural level. By not marching into those offices and demanding a change, I have agreed to this portrayal by my silence.

And here I am working so hard on maintaining my physique that I would feel I would be a hypocrite walking in there. Trying to hold onto my figure. Trying to hold onto my past. What kind of a role model am I if at 55 years old I still believe that losing weight is the answer to all my problems in life. No matter how messed up life gets as long as I am thin I know I will be okay. Anna Marie let her figure go years ago and has lines all around her face, but that Cajun loves her all the more for it.

C'est la vie.

Ch. 10 - Author's Soundtrack Suggestion:

"She Reminds Me of You"

By Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross

GWTDT Soundtrack

**Ch. 10 – The Next Day**

I hear birds chirping.

I fight to open my eyes.

I am still on the living room carpeting.

Still holding onto it for dear life.

I feel satiated, before my brain clicks in and reminds me about the events of last night.

Then waves of guilt, shame, and horror find themselves in my every thought.

I sense a stillness in the air. A perpetual pause, like a vacuum in space.

I turn my head to see an empty back yard. The stillness is eerie. Then deep beyond the backyard is a wall of trees; disguised between them I see a wolf.

A wolf.

Afraid of the house. Keeping a distance.

My foot hit something.

Someone else's foot. I lift myself up and see his -

I see his body. Not moving. Not anything.

I turn to the trees. The wolf is gone.

My body is sore and broken. Physically that release was decades over due. And my body needed it. It is learning how to walk after such a release. I struggle between the relaxation I feel and the horror I see before me. I check his vitals. He has passed a while ago.

I find myself walking up stairs and room after frightening room I see their bodies.

The bodies of his wife and of his children. Of Viho, the 19 year old version of him who will never be. "Who will never fall in love - who will never get to be cool."

Then the horror is revealed to me. I see Asha, the three-year-old daughter's leg twitch.

Twitching spastically. Automatically. After an electrical current has passed through her. Like. Lightning.

Chills race through me.

"This cannot be. This cannot be. This cannot be."

I hear an intense pounding at the door.

Authoritarian.

Like police.

A pregnant pause before it starts up again.

Someone on the other side ordering and demanding I open up.


	11. Chapter 11

**Ch. 11 – Numb**

Written with pencil and toilet paper.

Journal Entry

Date: ?

All I feel.

All I know.

This cannot be my reality.

This cannot be.

I do not feel anything, I am hard.

Numb.

A dead piece of wood.

I have been interrogated.

First by the local police.

Then the FBI, took over.

I can see why.

They are calling it an act of terror on humans and mutants. Cannibalism.

The first mutant attack on humans and mutants since, I do not know since Lensher put down his helmet in 1993.

Then a host of other people like psychologists took their turn with me.

I lost track.

Lost count.

After a week in Montana they transferred me to D.C.

I do not know how long I have been here, maybe weeks, maybe a month.

I have had no contact with the outside world.

No one has been allowed to see me.

I do not know anyone who would.

I can infer that my job is gone.

Federal agents most likely rip my apartment apart.

The funeral's happened.

Six children.

Two adults.

I have not watched the news or television.

I am on strict lockdown, but I can infer that the mutant rights issue is on everyone's tongue.

People want revenge.

People want to know why a mutant was using their powers and on top of that killing innocent humans and mutants.

And when they figure out my past with him, it will not be long before HBO picks up the rights and I am on the tip of every talk show host's tongue, like that nutty astronaut who wore diapers in an attempt kidnap her lover or whatever.

If it's HBO I am sure Al Pacino is set to play the male lead.

The psychologists who interrogated me, well let's just say I do not need to be a psychic to figure out what his report will cover.

They know I had an orgasm. They know because I told them. I told them step by step.

I may not have much morale strength after my horrible confession to him on that night, but I swore I would not lie to police. I have stood by that.

I waved my right to an attorney.

The guilt of killing eight people, children, a mother, and an ex-lover will do that to you.

They are planning to move me to Guantanamo tomorrow. This might be my last entry in a while. They are talking about the death penalty. And I am ready for that.

May the gods take me from this earth from whence I came and deliver me back up to my creator. If you do not take me into your fold after everything I have done, I understand.

Amen.

- They were supposed to ship me off today and it has not happened. Tomorrow they say.

- They promised they were shipping me off today and it has not happened.

They did not say when. Something is going on.

Two days have gone by and no one has interviewed me. I am being fed actual food. Food. My chapped lips bleed from the pressure the chicken, rice, and vegetables has on them.

My stomach hurts and cramps up, it is not use to it.

After lunch I am escorted to the interrogation room.

The large interrogation room.

There is no one there. Just a –

- it is the gym bag that I used on the trip.

It is in a large evidence bag, full of markings, coded numbers, and stamps.

I wait for a few minutes for someone to enter.

No one does.

I look at the one-way mirror. I stare down at it.

I open the evidence bag.

All I do is break the zip-lock seal. And I stop in my tracks. I smell something. Something I refuse to believe I smell. But it is unmistakable and my body shuts down. My muscles and nerves just stop.

I smell…..

I can barely form the words.

I. Smell. Three week old B.O.

Only-one-person-on the planet-smells like that….

"Sheep's f$%#$% clothing...eight ball side pocket."

-BBBAAAAAAMMMM-

My hand begins to shake violently. Terribly violently. Like an elderly woman who has gone through four strokes.

I push the bag onto the floor. I cover my mouth by biting my arm, but it does not stop the tears and the rage I feel at this moment. I am crying and I am screaming. I bite down hard, past skin.

I am manic and out of control.

I want answers. I want them now. I cannot think. The room is upside down.

This cannot be right. This is insane.

My nose is running, trickling down my mouth and chin. Tears and drool mix together and fall on the floor.

I cower in the corner for what feels like a few hours. Exhausting myself. Exhausted in shock. I feel I could stay this way for days.

I do not know how people get up from this position, how do they move on.

The door to the room opens. A single man walks in. He grabs my hands and removes the cuffs from my hands and ankles.

He gets out a handkerchief and a bottle of water and hands them politely to me.

Slowly, brain dead, just going on automatic pilot, my hands decide to clean myself up.

He brings my seat back to the table and I sit down. I do not really see him.

He opens the bag in front of me. And shows me the piles of men's dirty laundry, socks and the nastiest white briefs you have ever seen, they have not been washed in -

- I dry heave right there.

Nothing comes up. Then a moment. And then my beautiful lunch goes everywhere.

It is gone.

I am on the floor rolling in it, sliding in it. Not conscious of it. Fighting not to pass out.

I feel like the weight of a truck on top of me. I feel pinned to the ground as I dry heave again.

This guy's cell phone goes off and he picks it up while heading towards the door.

"I am with her right now. Yeah, yeah she figured it out almost immediately…."

It is now or never. He opens the door. I slam it shut. Stick a chair under the door nob and pounce on him, throttling him with my legs as he falls to the floor. And while spiting pieces of vomit and mucus at him I can only manage:

"Where is he? WHHHEEERRREEEISSSSSHEEEEEEEEEE?!"

He does not answer.

But - his – his phone does.

"O, O, O honey pick-up."

The smell of the vomit is making my eyes water, but I choke the tears down and grab the phone from the floor.

I look at the man again. He looks really familiar, not physically, I never saw his face before, but there is something about him. His presence maybe?

I breathe in. The oxygen kick-starts a few of the last brain cells I have left.

One action at a time, I look down, and pick up the cell phone. Extend my finger. Flex my fingers around the phone. Bring it to my ear.

"O? Are you there? I am calling you in honey. I - We need your help."

I know that voice.

…Wanda….

I look down I study this, black as night, African man.

Suddenly I know who he is.

I have never seen his face.

I believe very few people who know his identity have.

I am 99.9999% sure I have T'Challa pinned to the ground.

Better known as the Black Panther.

Author's Note:

Alan Silvestri

Avengers Soundtrack

Track 18


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 – The Killing Joke**

- exhale -

- exhale -

Lungs expand and contract.

I realize…

I realize I maybe got a little ahead of myself.

Perhaps I should attempt to explain to someone who does not know…

…what just transpired.

The subtle humor.

The inner-workings of the SOB's mind takes some getting use to.

He does not operate like most.

In his mind, he had a reason for killing eight people, which I am dying to discover – who am I kidding, not really, I could care less. There is absolutely no reason for killing eight people, but whatever.

In his sick mind he went to the huge inconvenience of electrocuting them, knowing I would be there, playing it as a little practical joke on yours truly.

But to make sure I got the punch line, he wanted to leave some symbol that I was not the murderer, but a sign I would only be able to put together. He wanted to mess with me.

Like I said, it may not make a whole lot of sense to people like you and me, but this is his language, it is a whole other level.

Who knows if he thought it would get this far. That I would be in prison, or that someone else would have picked up on the smoke signals in my bag.

He of course did not start out so…what's the word I am looking for…. psychopathic…but through the years it has grown on him like moss. He always had a dark sense of humor and made sure to thrust it into the face of anyone with who dare oppose him.

**Chapter 13 – The Wolf Appears Behind My Eyes**

I stand over this man waiting for my breathing to regulate. I realize he is patronizing me by playing the victim, maybe he knows I am in shock and he is being a gentleman, regardless he is not resisting me like an two year old child. He knows I have bigger things on my plate. Bless him.

As my head re-enters the atmosphere, I look in the one-way mirror. Looking at my body and see my lungs expand and contract. This emaciated warrior princess.

Then – in a blink of an eye my reflection is displaced – like before in the car with Rahne, and it is replaced with a horrid nightmarish version of me.

Completely bald.

With a white skull painted over my face.

But now I am naked.

My massive black nipples pointing outward.

They are cone shaped.

White make-up spiraling around them.

Could it be? A future version of myself? Am I somehow birthing this creature into existence by following these breadcrumbs in front of me? How do I stop her from coming through the womb so to speak?

Then I am back. My reflection is…me.

But deep…deep…deep in the recesses of my mind I hear a faint whisper:

"…you are becoming what you are….a wolf. Take off your disguise and let the world see your glory…."

I am genuinely scared of what I am becoming. Like a time bomb within me.

Click-

cli-ck-

cli…


	13. Thank You Readers

Dear Avid Readers:

I think the time has come for me to part ways with this little tale.

I thought I was the orchestrator of this adventure, when really Ms. Munroe was controlling everything.

Fiction writers are brave souls, exploring the human condition. For me it became a form of self-induced insanity.

Thank you for your readership and support. I never would of kept at this pace without you.

Until next time, true believers.


End file.
